Austin,
I am not sure if India Daily is a credible news source or not, but i did come across some kind of news item describing IAF’s plan to fight off combined Chinese Pakistani attack.

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/14850.asp

Indiadaily is definitely not credible. Just look through some of the stories there, and you’ll know.

Having said that, the IAF has always been tasked with defending India in worst case scenario- which is a two front war. Before the MKI deliveries began, the IAF CAS publically deposed in front of the House standing committee on defence, that the IAF could no longer face both the PAF and PLAAF aggressively (ie take the fight into their countries) thanks to the PLAAF modernisation. Thereafter, the MKI program was expanded and the IAF given more resources. You could see the effect of the funding flow post Kargil, especially the EW fits!

Oh please, how can anyone seriously think India can contribute anything significant to the PAK-FA project? India has STILL not produced an entirely indigenous jet. LCA hasn’t entered production, and their first jet Marut was not designed by India but by some German guy. Meanwhile Russia is a world leader in pretty much every aerospace-related technology in existence, what help could they possibly need from India?

Actually, India can contribute significantly to the PAK-FA project, given the MKI project and the role its institutes played..and today, its far further along. Fedorov has publically remarked on occasion that he expects India to further modify the MKI locally, and that it will help Irkut in turn. The LCA project may not have entered production, but it has already developed a host of subsystems and capabilities that are relevant to the PAK-FA.

A modern fighter jet is a SYSTEM, you cannot take a radar from the UK and a flight computer from France and ECM from Israel and lump it all together and expect it to work with even close to the level of performance or reliability as something like an F-16 where each component was designed specifically to work with the other components.

Today, components are designed to be modular, and a lot of systems work to common standards and interfaces. The MKI is a perfect example of this approach delivering a good result.

As already stated India is not involved with the PAK-FA project AT ALL, it is involved with the light fighter project (a light fighter being designed by Mig intended for export, not for the RuAF) which has nothing to do with PAK-FA.

You havent followed the recent news, of the Indian MOD signing on to the PAK-FA bandwagon. The MiG project seems to be sidelined.

The Brahmos model basically means that India and Russia both put up the development funds and create an entirely new agency, which then markets the developed product. The Brahmos is in some ways similar to the Yakhont, but it has significant Indian content, including its fire control system and launchers which are manufactured in India. The missile itself has an Indian built Nav-INS module.

So what could India contribute to the PAK-FA? Arguably, a lot.
-LCA derived composite structures
-Avionics, tailored to the Indian version
-Electronic warfare, based on the LCA’s Indo-Israeli Mayawi

But India might want to go to the next stage, and actually codevelop critical items such as the radar etc.

Russia is asking 3 Billion $ from India, and will put in an equal amount. This is again similar to the Brahmos model but doubts have been expressed in India on whether this amount is sufficient.

Austin is right, India has chosen the more capable aircraft design, and project risk is reduced because Russia is supporting the PAK-FA. It will be interesting to see where the MCA project is headed and when it will be launched now. Apparently, ADA will first be asked to finalize the LCA and get it to FOC before launching a follow on project.

Vick, a couple more times and I think Scooter will get the message. :p 😀

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!! This is definitely the most laughable explanation I have ever heard. Silverstein clearly overshot and later realized his mistake and then made all efforts to clean up the mess he has done.

Let me get this straight, Silverstein says “pulled it”, which could mean any which thing, he & several other sources corroborate what he meant.

The collapse of WTC7 is then also analysed by NIST and the results declared, and this is still not enough, and evidence of a cover up?

You seriously think that no fire chief, or public servant or individual would have sued Silverstein by now publically, if there was even a shred of evidence to your or the conspiracy theorists reasoning?

So whose explanation is laughable? The side that merely picks on ONE statement by a person, which could mean any which thing (as anyone familiar with the English language and especially American english will know, there are dozens of meanings depending upon the context in which any word can be used!), IGNORES all the scientific reasoning behind the analysis of the WTC7 collapse, and calls it a conspiracy?

How is it that the conspiracy theorists dont have any support either within the 9/11 victims community or the mainstream media (which doesnt like the current admin by any means), or the scientific professionals? Is it that all credible commentators regard them as having zilch evidence bar speculation.

And our pathetic little American bunnies dressed in shirts with stars and stripes cheerfully jumped onto another portion of bullsh!t served by the oh so objective American media.

Here you go again. The fact is Flex, you are unable to provide any reasoned evidence and quickly jump up with emotional abuse directed against the American media or forum members who are poking holes in your statements.

On the one hand, you have no issues using the same conspiracy theorists claims- most of whom happen to be American and rely on cherrypicked statements taken out of context from the US media. But then you state that the American media is part of a vast Govt coverup, which is “oh so objective”. In fact, the US media has been severely anti-Bush, why would they hide a coverup, they would in fact push for its expose. Bar Fox, most media networks dont have the time of the day for Bush & co. The democrats would love such an expose, but even they are silent.

I am not even American and can clearly see this.

Ok, so the conspiracy is so vast and professional that it can keep everyone silent, and then the key conspirator – Silverstein, who is doing this for insurance fraud or whatever, is silly enough to go on PBS (American media btw), and openly admit to it.

It cant be both ways, can it?

Lets go over the evidence again- a variety of specialists, from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, a variety of professions, all have corroborated the reasons for the WTC collapse.

They have addressed each of the claims- including the puffs of smoke. There are dozens of eye witness reports, including those of firemen who quite clearly point out that they were “pulled” once the building was deemed unrecoverable, tying in with what Silverstein states.

Where specialists are still investigating, they have made that clear as well- for instance, NIST about the two additional factors which contributed to the WTC7 collapse. In fact, they have been transparent and this is exactly why conspiracy theorists DONT have any scientific personnel backing them.

No big name folks from MIT, FAS or anyone to point out lacunae in the post accident investigation. Compare with any scientific program or even the Star Wars NMD project. The US has the worlds most erudite, most contrarian scientific community who have happily picked on the most high profile defence programs when they disagree with its intent and execution- and none have joined the conspiracy theorists, what does that tell any sane observer, about the utter lack of scientific rationale in the conspiracy theorists camp?

Lastly, I am not even American, so what talk of patriotism or lack of!

Not sure whether this is more funny or more disgusting. A bit of both..

It indeed is. You are an otherwise rational middle aged adult who is able to work professionally and deliver results. However, when it comes to this topic, you are unable to think dispassionately and quickly resort to Big Govt is out to silence the 9/11 conspiracy, rhetoric and a belief that the US Govt would carry out such a coverup, and that the US populace and scientific community would let it pass by unchallenged.

[QUOTE=flex297;1071432]

Your popularmechanics link is full of officially iunfluenced bullsh!t. Wanna proof?

You call this proof? You made the claim that all WTC buildings were rigged, but all you have is a claim by one man that one building was “pulled” wherein his own publicist has clarified the meaning of the word.

Popularmechanics claim:
The collapse of both World Trade Center towers–and the smaller WTC 7 a few hours later–initially surprised even some experts. But subsequent studies have shown that the WTC’s structural integrity was destroyed by intense fire as well as the severe damage inflicted by the planes. That explanation hasn’t swayed conspiracy theorists, who contend that all three buildings were wired with explosives in advance and razed in a series of controlled demolitions.

Reality, directly from Mr. Silverstein…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6905631612206278007&q=silverstein

What is this so called reality? That “pull it”? It could be something far more mundane:

September 9, 2005 statement by Mr. Dara McQuillan, a spokesperson for Larry Silverstein:

In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building. Later in the day, the Fire Commander ordered his firefighters out of the building and at 5:20 p.m. the building collapsed. No lives were lost at Seven World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

As noted above, when Mr. Silverstein was recounting these events for a television documentary he stated, “I said, you know, we’ve had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it.” Mr. McQuillan has stated that by “it,” Mr. Silverstein meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building [emphasis added].17

The most important operational decision to be made that afternoon was [that] the collapse [of the WTC towers] had damaged 7 World Trade Center … It had very heavy fire on many floors and I ordered the evacuation of an area sufficient around to protect our members, so we had to give up some rescue operations that were going on at the time [emphasis added] and back the people away far enough so that if 7 World Trade did collapse, we [wouldn’t] lose any more people. We continued to operate on what we could from that distance and approximately an hour and a half after that order was [given], at 5:30 in the afternoon, World Trade Center collapsed completely.18

Another first responder adds that there were “tremendous, tremendous fires going on. Finally they pulled [emphasis added] us out.”19 The first-hand accounts of rescue operations at WTC 7 tell a consistent story, and the latter quote also uses the word “pull” to describe the removal of firefighters from the vicinity of the building, just as McQuillan’s statement does. Indeed, there is large agreement between McQuillan’s response and the testimony of the firefighters, including the fact that:

firefighters were in fact in the vicinity of WTC 7 on 9/11;
their activities involved evacuation and rescue missions;
firefighters remained near WTC 7 until late in the afternoon of 9/11;
firefighters realized that WTC 7 would probably fall by approximately 3 pm on 9/11; and
firefighters pulled back from the building shortly after this realization, and watched the building collapse at approximately 5:20 pm.

Despite the objections of conspiracy theorists, the “official story” is both logically coherent and supported by evidence. By contrast, the story told by the 9/11 Truth Movement is riddled with holes. It assumes that Larry Silverstein destroyed WTC Building 7, presumably in order to claim a huge insurance payoff. But if this is so, why would he tell the world of his plot on a PBS special?

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-11.html

If you were really watching closely, you would see that the second aircraft crash took place near the edge of the building – with the huge fireball coming out of the windows on the perpendicular side. My estimate is that roughly 70% of jet fuel actually exploded outside of the building. Then why the second tower collapsed exactly the same way like the first one?

This is getting farcical. Your own estimate is that 70% of the fuel exploded outside? Based on just a visual guess, is this scientific? OTOH, it has taken professional investigators, many of whom have spent their lifetimes working in relevant fields to sift through the evidence, conduct millions of dollars worth of investigation and then present their evidence, but you are relying on your belief to be proof?

How scientific is this?

Why would you need to place explosives at the point of impact? You need to place explosives at the main structural nodes in the first place. Not sure about how you imagine a controlled demolition but you don’t need a large amount of explosives to create a huge explosion to blow everything apart, you need small and precisely placed and calculated charges, whcih are often not discernible at all (even if videos of he collapse definitely show some of them going off).

Ok, if you are claiming that the impression from explosive charges has to mimic the effects of a crash, then its clear that the building demolition has to follow the same pattern, right? If so, then the charges would be placed to begin with, at the portion the aircraft collided – and then have to go off sequentially.

And all this has to go on without an issue, even when a massive explosion from a jetliner, packed with fuel crashes into a building?

Which brings us to the point- the Popular Mechanics link clearly shows the effect of fuel on structural strength, and that of secondary fires-upto 1832 deg., and also gives a valid reason for the puffs of smoke- “pancaking”. In other words, the demolition charges were not required, and that there is a perfectly valid reason for the buildings to collapse.

The only thing left here is your refusal to believe these otherwise valid explanations, which we cant do anything about.

I am slowly getting tired answering to such senseless arguments lacking basic logic, coming from all sides.

Au contraire Flex. It seems that you are unable to counter reasoned evidence as presented in the Popular Mechanics link and only want to believe what you want to believe. Namely that there is a vast conspiracy that makes all sites that counter what you claim, as being evidence of a Govt campaign.

Not sure what you mean, but yes, a complete destruction of WTC towers would indicate, that this was no accidental collapse, which usually leaves large blocks of the building intact.

I have seen many videos of collapsed buildings. The larger they are, the harder they fall, and usually very little remains of the building. In the case of the WTC, I dont see why it would be any different.

Now you will have to unite yourselves, friends. You are presenting me two theories. But I only want one.. So let me sum it up:

I have pointed out that the quickness of collapse was phenomenal – 13 seconds. That is only a bit more than the actual free-fall velocity of the debris. I asked how was this possible, the answer I got that from excessive heat the supports could have collapsed at one stoke. OK, let us believe that for a start. If we stick to that theory and all supports were collapsed at one time, then right after the collapse of the floors that caught the direct impact (acting as a dynamic load on the whole unsupported structure) the lowest floor would have given in as first of all.

But we obviously see a different picture on the videos. From the point of impact the floors continue to collapse one after another direction downwards. That would be absolutely okay with me, because that would indicate that the lower floors still remained intact, whcih was logical. Let us do the worst case and assume that each higher floor could have been designed with lower safety factor (just to satisfy sferrin). Then again, we got two possibilities – either the 1. collapse would stop somewhere in the middle and we would have
a half of the tower sticking up to the skies (most likely) or 2. the complete collapse would take minutes, not 13 seconds (less likely but a boundary option).

Besides that, there no is reason for the lower floors being weakened – kerosene burns roughly at 850-900 Kelvin, that is almost nothing compared to high-grade steel, which only losses some 10% of its stiffness and definitely stays within the linear (elastic) part of its stress-strain curve. That means even the most affected parts would easily withstand the heat damage, not speaking about lower floors where temperatures did not exceed 60-70C.

Flex, this has all been addressed before:

Quote:

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
The collapse of both World Trade Center towers–and the smaller WTC 7 a few hours later–initially surprised even some experts. But subsequent studies have shown that the WTC’s structural integrity was destroyed by intense fire as well as the severe damage inflicted by the planes. That explanation hasn’t swayed conspiracy theorists, who contend that all three buildings were wired with explosives in advance and razed in a series of controlled demolitions.

Widespread Damage
CLAIM: The first hijacked plane crashed through the 94th to the 98th floors of the World Trade Center’s 110-story North Tower; the second jet slammed into the 78th to the 84th floors of the 110-story South Tower. The impact and ensuing fires disrupted elevator service in both buildings. Plus, the lobbies of both buildings were visibly damaged before the towers collapsed. “There is NO WAY the impact of the jet caused such widespread damage 80 stories below,” claims a posting on the San Diego Independent Media Center Web site (sandiego.indymedia.org). “It is OBVIOUS and irrefutable that OTHER EXPLOSIVES (… such as concussion bombs) HAD ALREADY BEEN DETONATED in the lower levels of tower one at the same time as the plane crash.”

FACT: Following up on a May 2002 preliminary report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a major study will be released in spring 2005 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST shared its initial findings with PM and made its lead researcher available to our team of reporters.

The NIST investigation revealed that plane debris sliced through the utility shafts at the North Tower’s core, creating a conduit for burning jet fuel–and fiery destruction throughout the building. “It’s very hard to document where the fuel went,” says Forman Williams, a NIST adviser and a combustion expert, “but if it’s atomized and combustible and gets to an ignition source, it’ll go off.”

Burning fuel traveling down the elevator shafts would have disrupted the elevator systems and caused extensive damage to the lobbies. NIST heard first-person testimony that “some elevators slammed right down” to the ground floor. “The doors cracked open on the lobby floor and flames came out and people died,” says James Quintiere, an engineering professor at the University of Maryland and a NIST adviser. A similar observation was made in the French documentary “9/11,” by Jules and Gedeon Naudet. As Jules Naudet entered the North Tower lobby, minutes after the first aircraft struck, he saw victims on fire, a scene he found too horrific to film.

“Melted” Steel
CLAIM: “We have been lied to,” announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. “The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel.” The posting is entitled “Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC.”

FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength–and that required exposure to much less heat. “I have never seen melted steel in a building fire,” says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. “But I’ve seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks.”

“Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F,” notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. “And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent.” NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.

But jet fuel wasn’t the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.

“The jet fuel was the ignition source,” Williams tells PM. “It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down.”

Click to enlarge
VIOLENT COLLAPSE: Pancaking floors–not controlled demolition–expel debris and smoke out South Tower windows. PHOTOGRAPH BY AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS Puffs Of Dust

CLAIM: As each tower collapsed, clearly visible puffs of dust and debris were ejected from the sides of the buildings. An advertisement in The New York Times for the book Painful Questions: An Analysis Of The September 11th Attack made this claim: “The concrete clouds shooting out of the buildings are not possible from a mere collapse. They do occur from explosions.” Numerous conspiracy theorists cite Van Romero, an explosives expert and vice president of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who was quoted on 9/11 by the Albuquerque Journal as saying “there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse.” The article continues, “Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish old structures.”

FACT: Once each tower began to collapse, the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bore down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor. Unable to absorb the massive energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the building in a chain reaction. Engineers call the process “pancaking,” and it does not require an explosion to begin, according to David Biggs, a structural engineer at Ryan-Biggs Associates and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) team that worked on the FEMA report.

Like all office buildings, the WTC towers contained a huge volume of air. As they pancaked, all that air–along with the concrete and other debris pulverized by the force of the collapse–was ejected with enormous energy. “When you have a significant portion of a floor collapsing, it’s going to shoot air and concrete dust out the window,” NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder tells PM. Those clouds of dust may create the impression of a controlled demolition, Sunder adds, “but it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception.”

Demolition expert Romero regrets that his comments to the Albuquerque Journal became fodder for conspiracy theorists. “I was misquoted in saying that I thought it was explosives that brought down the building,” he tells PM. “I only said that that’s what it looked like.”

Romero, who agrees with the scientific conclusion that fire triggered the collapses, demanded a retraction from the Journal. It was printed Sept. 22, 2001. “I felt like my scientific reputation was on the line.” But emperors-clothes.com saw something else: “The paymaster of Romero’s research institute is the Pentagon. Directly or indirectly, pressure was brought to bear, forcing Romero to retract his original statement.” Romero responds: “Conspiracy theorists came out saying that the government got to me. That is the farthest thing from the truth. This has been an albatross around my neck for three years.”

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=4

Finally, what is most important, in the whole history of mankind not one single metal-concrete bulding has even collapsed due to fire. Ever. If such experienced firemen like Ladder Company 15 confirmed there only were two isolated and not too dangerous pockets of fire evident, which should easily be knocked down with two hose lines and that they were utterly shocked about why the building should have collapsed at all, then I don’t really need to listen to wannabe computer screen experts like sferrin, or Sean or others who (with all respect to their knowledge on their fields) know approximately as much about fracture mechanics as I know about genetic manipulation.

First, its an apples to oranges comparison, how many buildings the size of WTC have been hit by aircraft, been sprayed with tons of jet fuel and have had it explode? There lies your answer. Fact is that nobody planned for such a nightmare scenario, which is why it was so successful.

Don’t quite see the point. Many humans on lower floors easily survived the impact – why not explosives? An explosive surely can withstand temperatures several times exceeding those human body can survive. If your theory was correct, then all people in WTC would have been killed, without exception.

Flex, your point is that controlled demolition occured via explosives. Here we have a scenario where tons and tons of fuel is flying around, apart from the aircraft metal itself, literally vaporizing everything in its part, and the explosives, the intricate system of wiring that would have triggered them off at precise intervals would have remained intact? Even more so, at the point of impact, so as to make it appear that the aircraft caused the crash? Surely you understand how improbable this is?

Except one fact – no portions remained intact. No large five-six-floor intact blocks were found in ruins, everything was shattered into relatively small pieces.

Which is what can be expected when such a huge structure collapses, surely you dont expect that there will be no resistance amongst different portions which will move against each other and grind each other to bits. Even when demolitions are conducted with the upper stage collapsing on the bottom ones, the usual result is the complete destruction of the other parts by the end of it all.

Whether those timelines were due to inexperience or incompetence, that is open for debate.

Call it what you will, but the fact is that India has had zilch experience of a program of the LCAs magnitude in the past.

MSD Wollen does not pull punches either- he points out the problem of having the LCA project attempting to do the maximum work inhouse, vis a vis how even the Gripen team was far more liberal with outsourced items, despite much greater experience in the fighter development field.

That is the key management challenge of the LCA, that it has to straddle two worlds, both of which are at cross purposes- quick delivery of a fighter, YET develop the majority of its key subsystems inhouse, especially when the work begins from scratch, and hence long product development timelines are a given. That continues to be a cross the LCA team has to bear, especially since an immature media expects everything in the LCA and other defence projects to be fully vertically integrated, and all items to be sourced from within India. This is an unrealistic proposition for a developing country with limited financial resources, to achieve on its very first try.

India’s lack of institutional support for local products has also meant that unrealistic timelines and budgets have been quoted, and this has led to much criticism when these deadlines and budget expectations were crossed, but thats the price the R&D folks paid in getting an ambitious project through the Government of India’s beancounters.

There are multiple factors at work, of which some – not all- are technology driven.

However, i would like to comment that a number of people on this forum have defence LCA and other issues in a good manner- besides a few insults that were thrown around from time to time. These issues would continue to be discussed in future, and i certainly hope that when it comes to other international projects those of us talking of inexperience or unexpected developments etc would be as forthcoming in pointing them out as they have been here.

Sure!